Data Analyst Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a data analyst. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a data analyst.
Who is a Data Analyst?
A data analyst is a person who performs the process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data. The purpose of data analysis is to discover information that is useful to the user and supports decisions. These individuals are in demand in businesses, government agencies, and other organizations. If you are interested in learning more about this field, read on. There are several different types of analysts, including business analysts, financial analysts, and data scientists.
Data analysts are responsible for mining and querying data for purposes of business analysis. These analysts use Structured Query Language (SQL) to access warehouses containing relational data. They also use statistical techniques to interpret the data, analyze trends, and make recommendations. A data analyst’s job is never done. They must be able to analyze the data collected from multiple sources to find insights that can improve the company’s operations.
Data analysts need strong communication skills, strong problem-solving abilities, and industrial knowledge to make progress. Whether you work for a large or small company, your knowledge of the industry will give you a leg up when applying for jobs. Reading about the industry is a great way to gain knowledge of trends and best practices. You can also learn more about statistics by completing a master’s program or pursuing a Ph.D. in data analysis.
Data analysts must be skilled at communicating technical and non-technical information. For example, healthcare analysts need to know how to extract data from various sources. They need to be knowledgeable about how to extract data from databases that do not support SQL. These individuals can interpret the data in various ways and can assist healthcare professionals in making decisions. They can also help hospitals and other organizations plan for major purchases or reduce supply shortages.
Data analysts gain meaningful information from larger amounts of data. A data analyst can work in market research, scientific research, environmental research, and also in the IT industry. They also develop recommendations for action and lead projects on the subject of data mining. A data analyst analyzes existing data sets, diagrams, and tables. He has an interest in, and in-depth knowledge of, basic computer programs, and is proficient in most programming languages.
It is easy for a data analyst to concentrate and work in a focused manner. He has analytical thinking skills and is well-versed in using computers. He creates and develops concepts for the company to support it in quality control.
Data Analyst Job Description
Below are the data analyst job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a data analyst job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
Most of the common tasks that data analysts can perform include:
- Searching obtained information for unknown relationships
- Developing practical analysis tools, reporting, and evaluation of the analysis tools
- Developing recommendations for action and identifying trends
- Investigating data volumes and complex data structures
- Quality control and assessment of the quality of the data sets
- Maintaining and implementing file systems
- Monitoring and reporting of processes
- Creating SQL database queries (data warehouse)
- Defining data analysis goals, together with the heads of the specialist departments in the company
- Collecting and selecting structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources
- Data organization and data modeling
- Cleaning up of the databases for data consistency and high data quality
- Identifying and correcting any errors in the data collection and archiving systems
- Interpreting and analysis of data patterns, relationships, and trends
Qualifications
Graduating from a data analysis program, especially if you have a good grade point average and a high ranking in your class, should lead to an entry-level position in data analysis without much of a hassle. A bachelor’s degree in mathematics, statistics, or economics at a renowned university is enough to get a foot in the door. While this is an entry-level job, the salary in most areas is more than what seasoned professionals make.
Most of the highest paying jobs in data analysis can reach as high as $ 100,000 a year in the first year after college. Seasoned professionals can make double or more of what an entry-level data analyst makes. Experience can come from working as an entry-level analyst or from a related area such as investment analysis. However, education is often the most important thing on your resume when applying for a job as a data analyst. Few people are hired in math majors without strong academic performance.
Essential Skills
A career in data analysis can require a wide variety of skills, including technical and non-technical. This also includes the application of different digital tools. The skills required depend entirely on the company, the industry, and the exact role. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the most important and most common nine qualifications that are important for your entry as a data analyst.
Technical skills
- Programming skills
Most of the time, a job as a data analyst primarily requires collecting, processing, and analyzing data. In addition, programming skills are an advantage to be more flexible and independent of analysis software. That can save time in day-to-day work. Knowledge of Python is, particularly in demand. Because of all the programming languages, there is, Python is the preferred one. If you don’t have any previous knowledge here, that’s not a big deal. Even as a complete beginner, Python skills can be learned relatively easily with part-time training.
- Understanding databases and their languages
The management of data requires understanding the language of a database. A database comes into play where the capacity of Excel ends. It is a system that stores and retrieves very large amounts of data. A data analyst must be able to understand the structure of databases to collect the information needed for analysis.
- Data manipulation
In very few cases is the data ready for analysis right from the start. As mentioned at the beginning, data is often incomplete, not organized, or available in different formats. Data records must therefore be cleaned up first. Analysts often use a language such as Python to prepare the data for analysis. This process is called data manipulation.
- Tools for data visualization
What does a data analyst do with the results of his analysis? Data visualization is a powerful ability to communicate results. Tools like Matplotlib, JavaScript d3.js, and Tableau can help. Mastering these tools is important, but it is even more important to understand the principles of how data can be successfully visualized and communicated in an understandable manner using data storytelling.
- Mathematics and Statistics
Statistics and linear algebra are skills that a data analyst should have or learn. They are crucial when it comes to performing tests and, in very advanced cases, deciding how algorithms can be optimized. In the second case, programming knowledge in Python is often a great help.
Non-technical skills
- Logic
With a bright head, you can go far. A useful skill for data analysts is using logical thought patterns that do not require advanced math. A data analyst often has to be able to think deeply into the context of his analysis to determine interesting questions and to be able to critically question the results. Data analysis is a broad field with a multitude of tasks. Depending on the field of activity, special knowledge is required. It is important to have a basic understanding of math and statistics, but it is more important to be able to view problems analytically. 80 percent of the work of a data analyst consists of the preparation, sorting, and visualization of data, for which no higher mathematics is usually necessary.
- Creativity
Data storytelling and presentations go hand in hand. But good presentation skills cannot be taken for granted. The ability to tell a compelling story with data is critical to properly convey insights and engage audiences. It is an art in itself to simply express complex relationships without falsifying the content. For this reason, data visualization and good data storytelling are important skills that a data analyst must master.
- Social Skills
It is important to understand who the customer of an analysis contract or the target group of a presentation is and what prior knowledge these people have. This is especially true if the findings cannot be recognized quickly and easily. Often other departments lack the knowledge to correctly interpret the results of data analysis. A data analyst knows what information his audience needs and how best to convey it.
- Business experience
Understanding a company’s goals is critical when it comes to making informed, data-driven decisions. Data analysts should not only understand how data can affect their company’s decisions, but they should also know how it can be used, for example: interact with engineers or product managers or bring industry knowledge with them.
Both a technical and a non-technical understanding of the company and its internals are essential for the job of a data analyst.
How to Become a Data Analyst
Your career as a data analyst begins with learning job-related skills. As a newcomer without a mathematical or programming background, this means that the first thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the basic knowledge and to understand the analysis process. As soon as you have gathered the most important skills, you can consider applying as a data analyst. Even if this process sounds effortless, such a career change requires a lot of dedication. To learn everything you need for this change and to fall back on the specialist knowledge of experienced data experts, it is worth considering online courses. Successful completion of such a course can mean certification as a data analyst, which is an important alternative to traditional university degrees.
Where to work as a Data Analyst
The demand for data analysts is high in companies in various sectors: IT and telephony, banking and insurance, retail and e-commerce, media and communication, industry, transport and logistics, healthcare … and also in public administration.
Data analysts often work in market research, for the development of predictive models and algorithms for explaining and predicting consumer behavior (e.g. propensity to buy and churn models, prediction models, cluster analyzes look-alikes) or in financial analysis, where they apply learning methods to develop and optimize decision models (e.g. Next Best Action) – but your help for the investigation of more complex data structures is in demand wherever large amounts of data arise due to ongoing business processes.
There are also consulting companies specializing in BI and digital transformation that offer interesting employment opportunities for data analysts.
You can also find data analyst jobs in many industries. The specialists for data analytics are particularly in demand in digitally operating companies in which a large amount of data is generated. The financial and insurance sectors use data analysis to create forecasts and adjust their products accordingly. In the healthcare sector, data analysis forms the basis for new therapy options and e-health products.
Data Analyst Salary Scale
The salary as a data analyst depends, among other things, on professional experience. You usually start your career as a junior data analyst or as a data analytics employee. After a few years, you can work your way up to Senior Data Analyst. If you prove yourself in the job, you can move up to a management position.
As a Junior Data Analyst, you can earn an average annual gross salary of around 44,000 euros, depending on the industry and company size. After five to six years of professional experience, an annual gross income of around 57,700 euros is possible. With around ten years of experience on the job, you can even earn more than 71,000 euros gross per year.
How much you earn as a data analyst also depends on the region in which you work. You can expect particularly high earning opportunities in the southern federal states and in Hamburg. The average annual salary is between 66,372 and 68,550 euros gross. In the federal states in the east, on the other hand, you earn an average annual gross salary of around 50,000 euros. The only exception is Berlin: the average annual gross salary in the capital is EUR 59,463. Larger companies generally offer higher salaries than young start-ups and small and medium-sized companies. Smaller companies, on the other hand, often give you more freedom and development opportunities.